Africa has played a decisive role in the forming of Christian tradition from its infancy. A few of the most decisive intellectual accomplishments of Christianity had been explored and realized in Africa before they were in Europe.

If this is so, how come Christianity frequently perceived in Africa like a Western colonial import? How do Christians in North and sub-Saharan Africa, certainly, how can Christians throughout the world, rediscover and learn from this ancient heritage?

Theologian Thomas C. Oden gives a family portrait that difficulties prevailing notions of the intellectual advancement of Christianity from its early roots to its contemporary expressions. The pattern, he suggests, is not from north to southern from European countries to Africa, but the various other way around. He then makes an impassioned plea to uncover the hard data and research comprehensive the vital function that early African Christians played in developing the modern university or college, maturing Christian exegesis of Scripture, shaping early Christian dogma, modeling conciliar patterns of ecumenical decision-making, revitalizing early monasticism, developing Neoplatonism, and refining rhetorical and dialectical skills.